


Sudden Death

by hetzi_clutch



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: DWFicExchange, Gen, i feel like this is a cliche, oh well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 07:16:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19988239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hetzi_clutch/pseuds/hetzi_clutch
Summary: The Doctor plays chess with Death.





	Sudden Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [delicatelyglitterywriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/delicatelyglitterywriter/gifts).



> This fic is written for delicatelyglitterywriter! It's a bit out there, but I had a lot of fun with it :) also I know nothing about chess or underground electric panels, so just pretend I do.

She jerks awake gasping.

“Where—”

Darkness. Everything, shrouded in it. Or rather, the opposite, for the dark doesn’t seem to cover anything but empty space. Nothingness, stretching out into the distance, except for herself and—

A table. Barely big enough for two people, so close her knees are banging the underside. A chair she’s sitting on, and another opposite. 

Upon the table sits a chessboard, the pieces lined up ready to play.

Across from her sits Death.

At least, it looks like Death. A dark robe, a hooded face. Features she can’t make out, and a scythe propped across his knees. Hers? She decides to go with hers.

Her eyes fall to the chessboard and she raises an eyebrow.

“Bit of a stereotype, isn’t it? Playing chess with Death. I bet the real Death is quite annoyed.”

Death cocks her head, and extends a long spindly finger. It’s not bones, just translucent flesh. Something about that makes the Doctor feel better, and inexplicably worse. 

She levels it at the board, and in a low voice, a rasp of sandpaper, whispers, “Your move.”

The Doctor looks to the chessboard and starts. Where moments ago there had been a perfectly set game, now it’s half over. Black spars with white across the field, and white appears to be losing. Pieces line the sides.

The Doctor is white. 

“That’s not fair,” she complains, and looks up. “You can’t just move it around while I—”

She glances down again, and more white pieces have gone. She’s definitely losing. “How are you doing this? Don’t you want a fair game?”

Death shrugs. “I always win in the end.”

“Right,” the Doctor mutters. “Death always wins. The stereotypes continue. Suppose I’ll just—”

Her hand goes into her pocket, grasps at nothing. “My sonic. Where’s my sonic?”

“No tools here,” Death rasps. “You play the same as everyone else.”

“I was just going to have a scan,” the Doctor says, but she withdraws her hand and looks around. “Where is here, anyway? And why are we playing chess? Why not just—take me?”

Death looks up then, and though she can make out no features on that shadowed face, she can feel her stare boring into her all the same. 

“Everybody plays,” she says. “No matter who you are, or where you come from. Everybody plays eventually.”

The Doctor nods, and for the first time feels her hearts start to pound. “Okay, then. Suppose you’d like to tell me how I got here?”

Death just extends one long finger, and points it at the board. “Your move.”

_ “But that doesn’t make sense!”  _

_ They’re striding to the seawalls, great concrete borders blocking a roiling white-capped mass of water, the others struggling to keep up. _

_ “Course it does, Yaz,” the Doctor replies. “This world is ninety percent water. Only way to keep the island countries safe is to control the water. Control the tides, bend the oceans to your will. It’s honestly brilliant.” _

_ “Okay,” Ryan gasps, jogging to her side, “But why manufacture a tsunami? Who would want that?” _

_ “Rival countries,” the Doctor answers. She’s staring straight ahead, eyes on the sea in front of her. “Politicians, maybe. Wipe out part of the community they don’t like, use it to further their own agenda. I can’t be entirely sure, Ryan, but the readings are sound. And we’ve got to stop it.” _

_ “And how’re we gonna do that?” Graham asks, just as they reach they edge of the seawall. There’s no fence, only a concrete barrier rising up to their knees, and below them dark, angry water. “How the hell do you turn off a tsunami?” _

_ The Doctor doesn’t immediately answer, but stares at the water below. _

_ “I think,” she says. “I’m going to have to take a swim.” _

It’s a tough game when most of her pieces are already gone. She’s reduced to a single rook, a knight, and a handful of pawns, along with, thankfully, her queen. She’s slightly relieved she’s managed to save her up until now, even though it’s absolutely ridiculous to feel relieved because this is almost certainly not actual Death. Actual Death, she’s pretty sure, doesn’t spend her time playing chess with unfortunate souls, doesn’t traipse around with a scythe and a dark cloak.

Then, she can’t be sure, and maybe that’s why her hearts are pounding just a little faster than normal. 

She sweeps her eyes across the board, notes the disparity in pieces—Death has both her bishops, which doesn’t seem fair—and tries to map out the board. It’s been ages since she’s played, and even longer since she’s played boring old human chess. There’s three dimensional chess, and there’s Almeno chess, and there’s chess that takes place across seven boards and three planets, and she’s enjoyed those all a sight more than this.

And they’re practically at a stalemate. She plays it safe, and pushes forward a pawn.

Death doesn’t make any outward sign of disapproval—or approval, for that matter. Instead she sweeps her hand across the board, fingers flexing, then moves a pawn, far off from the one the Doctor had moved.

Seems the stalemate continues. The Doctor can’t help but be slightly relieved.

_ “A swim?” Yaz asks in disbelief. “Doctor, you can’t! You said it yourself, any moment there’s going to be a—” _

_ “Tsunami, I know,” the Doctor finishes grimly. “Yeah, it’s a bit worrying. But on the bright side, there won’t be a tsunami if I manage to disable the controls.” _

_ “Yeah?” Graham asks, disbelief edging his tone. “And where are the controls, then?” _

_ The Doctor doesn’t say a word. She just points mutely to the waters below. The wind has started to whip up white caps across the surface, and as they follow her gaze down, a wave crashes against the seawall. _

_ “Built into the seawall,” the Doctor says. “Easy access if you’ve got a diving suit.” _

_ “But you don’t have a diving suit,” Yaz says desperately. The Doctor is already shrugging off her coat, and Yaz takes it without asking. “Doctor, you could drown!” _

_ “I know how to swim, Yaz,” the Doctor says. She’s staring at the waters, and for just a moment, something close to fear flashes across her face. Then it’s gone, and her expression hardens. “Trust me, I can hold my breath for a long time. I’ll be fine.” _

_ “Listen, Doc—” Graham begins, but he doesn’t get to finish. The Doctor is already climbing up onto the barrier, balancing on the edge, and Ryan reaches her with an urgent “wait!” but it’s too late. With one step, she’s over the edge.  _

_ They rush to the side, just in time to see the white-foamed splash below. The Doctor is nowhere in sight. _

“Is it getting a little cold in here?” the Doctor asks. They’re two moves later, and almost nothing has advanced upon the board. Only quick feints and jabs, testing the defenses before darting back to safety. The Doctor wonders if the average person manages to hold Death at bay this long. Then she wonders if that’s her ego talking. 

It probably is.

Death doesn’t answer, and the Doctor shivers. She’s waiting for Death to move, long fingers creeping across the board, and it seems like an eternity before she finally decides. When she does, the Doctor’s hearts drop.

A decisive move. Her bishop in place to take her rook. The Doctor stares, and wonders when her ego is going to shut up. She has the feeling that the real game is just beginning.

“You were just playing me, weren’t you?” She looks up and squints, trying to make out some of Death’s shadowy features. It’s useless; there’s nothing. “You could probably take me in two moves if you wanted to.”

It’s silly to goad Death, she thinks. But then, she’s still not entirely convinced this is Death, and the Doctor’s always been good at talking when she shouldn’t. So she leans back in her chair, gives a slight shiver—it’s damp here too, now she thinks about it—and crosses her arms.

“Go on.” She points her chin towards the board. “Take me. Bet you could, if you wanted to. So why not just do it?”

She almost doesn’t expect a response, but to her surprise, Death slowly shakes her head.

“I am bound by rules,” she rasps. “As are you, Doctor.”

Death sweeps her hand across the board, the table. “I am here, fixed by the universe. You will all find me eventually, but it is not within my domain to decide when. I only play for your hand.”

“Yeah?” the Doctor says. There’s something surprisingly genuine to Death’s words, and she hesitates, then shakes off belief like water droplets. “That doesn’t make sense, though. The universe isn’t fair, I’ve long since learned that. Why give us the chance at all?”

Death cocks her head. Her hood stays in place, doesn’t even shift enough to reveal a sliver, but the Doctor suddenly gets the solid sense that she’s grinning. She shivers.

“Who ever said this game would be fair?”

_ She plunges into ice-cold depths, and her brain immediately short-circuits. It’s absolutely freezing; she’s shaking like a leaf, trying not to gasp because she knows she’ll just take in buckets of cold water. She forces her eyes open instead, and turns to the seawall she knows has to be right behind her. It’s there, a dark gray mass, and she begins to feel away along it, fingers searching for any bump, any alteration— _

_ There! A square, set into the wall, just level with her head. She reaches into her pocket—thank the universe she’d had the mind to put her sonic in there—and pulls it out, aiming it at the square panel. It swings open with a pop she can almost hear beyond the roaring of the waves pulling at her, and she nearly lets out a sigh of relief before remembering she can’t do that. So instead she points her sonic once more at the mass of wires and switches, and presses the button. _

_ It doesn’t work. _

_ She frowns, presses it again, and a moment later realizes; they’ve gone and deadlocked it. Made it old-fashioned to prevent anybody from getting in and changing things. The panel needs to be encoded by hand, the wires and switches manipulated by somebody with the information to know what they’re changing, which the Doctor doesn’t have. _

_ She could probably figure it out, if she has the time. But she doesn’t have the time. _

_ Then, neither do the citizens of this planet. _

_ The Doctor flicks the light on her sonic, wedges it under her braces so she can see what she’s doing, peers closer, and gets to work. _

“Damn it!”

Her rook is gone. She’d left him unawares at the last second, Death had swooped in, and now he’s lining the side of the board neatly with the rest of her white pieces. She stares at him glumly, then glances to the pieces still splayed across the checkered squares. A knight, her queen. Her king, of course, and three pawns.

She’s starting to see why this isn’t fair.

“Why do you play chess?” She looks up at Death, who cocks her head. “Why not…I dunno, checkers or something? Scrabble?”

“I do not control the game,” Death rasps. “The universe lends advantage. The board appears as that you are best at.”

“Huh,” the Doctor mutters. “Thought you said this isn’t fair.”

Then again, maybe it isn’t. After all, Death—if this really is Death—has probably spent billions of years working up her cred. Learning the game, the ins and outs. And the board—the board had been set, and then it hadn’t.

“Is that why it’s not fair then?” she asks. “The board was set at the start. Then it wasn’t, it jumped to the middle. End, actually. Why is that?”

Death pins her with a look she can’t see but she can feel. Studying, scrutinizing.

“Do you really want to know?”

The Doctor glances at the board. Sneaking realization dawns, and a cold sweat breaks over the back of her neck.

“No,” she says quietly. “I don’t suppose I do.”

_ It’s hard work, and she’s running out of air. _

_ The wires are nearly impossible to see so she feels her way around instead, connecting this and switching that, trying to figure out some combination that will stop the incoming tsunami. She’s no idea how long she’s got. For the tsunami, that is. She’ll definitely run out of air before then.  _

_ Or sooner. _

_ She’s finally figured out a combination, or nearly so, and it’s not a moment too soon. Her brain is growing fuzzy, her thoughts muddled. She’s having trouble remembering which wire goes where. _

_ But she’s almost certain she’s got it now, she only has to— _

_ “Ow!” The switch pinches her finger, and without thinking, she sucks in a breath. Immediately, ice-cold water comes rushing in, and she chokes, draws her hands back. She shuts her mouth, but it’s too late; she can’t breathe. _

_ But she still has to finish. _

_ With shaking fingers, choking and coughing, she reaches out and shoves the final switch into place. _

“Check.”

The Doctor stares at the board, mouth agape. “But how—”

And then she chokes. Impossible water drenches her, rushes into her lungs, freezing, and her hands fly uselessly to her chest.

“I can’t—” she’s hacking and coughing, can barely get words out, can’t even breathe, and Death is sitting there, impassive. Of course. “How—”

But Death doesn’t move, doesn’t answer. She simply extends one long white finger and points to the Doctor’s king, cornered by a bishop and a rook and her queen, and pins the Doctor with a gaze she can’t see but can feel all the same.

“Check.”

_ She’s growing lightheaded, spots appearing before her vision, but she manages to slam the panel shut. She pushes away from the wall but her sleeve snags on the closed panel and for a moment she panics—stuck, stuck, she’s stuck—and then she collects herself and tugs it open, removes her sleeve and slams the panel back into place. Then she kicks upwards, or at least she thinks it’s upwards, because really she has no idea. Everything is going dark, or maybe it’s always been dark, and she feels like there should be some sort of light she’s heading towards, but now she can barely think either. Breathing. What’s breathing? Her lungs are fully of water, and so is her mouth and her nose and her brain and she wants to swim, wants to escape but she can’t— _

_ She reaches upwards, grabbing desperately for something, anything, but her fingers find nothing and she slips back down into icy depths. _

“This—isn’t fair,” the Doctor chokes, which of course it isn’t, life isn’t fair so why should death be either, but that doesn’t change the fact that she can’t die  _ now _ . She’s got friends to get back to, she’s pretty sure, and planets to save and things to see but mostly  _ friends— _

Death cocks her head. “Do you forfeit?”

The Doctor, swaying in her seat as black spots appear before her vision, manages to shake her head.

“Good.” Death beckons to the board. “Your move.”

The Doctor stares at the board and barely sees it. There are moves she can make, but none that would save her. Only a dance around the board until Death gets tired of it or the Doctor figures out something very clever. And she’s been in tight spots before, but she’s never tried to play chess while choking on water that rightfully shouldn’t be there.

“I—” she tries to say, which was a mistake because she immediately hacks up a lungful of water. It splatters across the board and, miraculously, doesn’t knock a single piece down. Instead it drips off, puddling around the pieces lining the sides.

She can almost _ feel  _ Death wrinkling her nose.

“Your move,” she repeats, and there’s a hint of annoyance in her tone, enough to make the Doctor worried. She doesn’t answer, but stares at the board.

She doesn’t know what to do.

_ Falling—no— _

_ Sinking. _

_ She’s sinking down, down, down into darkness, and when she opens her mouth to scream she’s only met with more water. Blue-blackness crowds her vision, her lungs are bursting and she wants to panic, wants to do something, but her thoughts are spinning off into a cotton that’s not entirely unpleasant. _

_ And she knows she can’t follow it down, knows she has to find the surface, find her friends, but she doesn’t know how anymore. She doesn’t even know if she’s right-side up and her shoes are heavy, her clothes waterlogged, all of it pulling her down down down. _

_ The Doctor sinks, one hand still stretched to the sky. _

She drags herself out of check, and Death immediately checks her again. And again. They dance around the board, check and not check, and the Doctor tries to think, tries to  _ plan _ , but she can’t. Every time she opens her mouth, water spatters onto the board.

“Check.” 

The Doctor groans. She reaches out, grabs her king to uncheck herself, and nearly checkmates herself instead. The board is blurring before her, and when she removes her hand from the piece, still not having moved, Death tilts her head to one side.

“Do you forfeit?”

The Doctor shakes her head. She weaves where she sits, trying to focus, and gets the sense that Death is waiting. A stale curiosity not present a moment before. A  _ let’s see what she’ll do now. _

What she’ll do now. But there’s nothing left to do.

Death always wins.

“You always win,” she forces out. “I can’t—you’ll beat me in the end—”

Death regards her for a moment, then dips her head. “Nobody can run from death forever. But a chance is always offered.”

“A chance.” The Doctor's hearts beat wildly. “But I can’t get out, I can’t escape, I can’t win—”

Oh.

Who said anything about winning?

Death watches her, stale curiosity edging into something more. “Do you forfeit?”

“No,” the Doctor gasps, slow wheels turning, water dripping. “No, I—”

With two hands, she shoves herself away from the table and stands up.

Death immediately stands as well, scythe sliding to one hand, and for a moment the Doctor thinks she’s made the wrong choice. But Death only glances at the board, and gives the tiniest of shrugs.

“Well played, Doctor.” 

The Doctor opens her mouth to reply, has the barest second to realize that the water is gone, and then she’s gone too, whisked away like a voice on the wind.

—————

“Doctor? Doctor!”

She coughs, chokes on it. Water flies from her mouth, dribbles down her chin, but when she sucks in an instinctive breath, sweet air rushes in instead. A hand smooths her hair back, and she opens her eyes to Yaz’s worried face.

“You were nearly a goner, you idiot.” She manages a watery smile, which quickly turns to actual tears. “Oh my god, I could kill you!”

“She almost killed herself trying to dive in after you.” Ryan edges into view, standing far above her, and she cranes her head back, blinking against warm sunlight to look at him. “Took two of us to hold her back.”

“Yeah, lucky there was an emergency station right by.” It’s Graham’s voice, warm and kind and utterly real, and when she turns her head she catches a glimpse of his kind smile as well. “Divers jumped right in, pulled you out.”

“Only we thought you were dead!” Yaz’s hand pushes into her shoulder, a weak shove with no real anger behind it, and the Doctor winces in apology.

“Sorry, Yaz. Sorry…fam.” She gives them a wan smile, then lets her head fall back onto the concrete, strange images dancing in her head. Of chess and Death and darkness. “I thought I nearly was for a moment there myself.”

Then something occurs to her, and she levers herself onto her elbows. “But no tsunami, yeah?”

Graham shakes his head. “We had the divers check their radars. Nothing.”

“Oh. Good.” The Doctor sinks back onto the concrete and can’t hold back a relieved sigh. She relishes in it, the in and out of air freely through her lungs. “That’s…great, actually.”

“Suppose you didn’t see any cool fishes or anything while you were down there?” Ryan asks, and receives a stern look from Yaz, as well as a jab toward his legs.

“Ryan, she almost died!”

“Sorry!” He leaps back from her blow and pulls a sheepish look. “Just always wanted to go diving, that’s all.”

“Yeah, no fishies,” the Doctor says, chin tilted toward the sun. Her hearts are beating in her ears, and the sound is indescribably wonderful. “Though I did have the strangest dream.”

“Of what?” Ryan asks, and leans forward, interested. But the Doctor just shakes her head.

“Not worth saying,” she mumbles, and tilts her head back further to catch the rays. The sun hurts her eyes, but she doesn’t want to close them. “Suppose we all have it, one time or another.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sudden Death: A final time control period where the game must be completed within a certain amount of time, say 20 minutes on each player's clock.
> 
> See? I did some research.


End file.
